This paper provides a foundation for ongoing research on trafficking in persons from the Pacific Islands region and the identification of effective prevention strategies. Findings suggest that that the Pacific Island region is vulnerable to the crime of trafficking in persons, and that strategies targeting the vulnerabilities are a necessary element of combating trafficking in persons as well as transnational crime in the Pacific Island region. Included is a focus on domestic as well as transnational trafficking in persons; local specialized anti-trafficking legislation and law enforcement support; responding to the diversity of offending related to this crime (including legal and illegal people movements to exploit them in legal and illegal industries); and tackling contextual factors that enable this crime, such as weaknesses in immigration laws, corruption in related agencies, and strengthening community vigilance and policing. Findings indicate that there are already best practices and effective initiatives in place. One challenge is to increase and improve upon these initiatives to a region-wide scale in order to avoid simply displacing trafficking in persons into areas not targeted by anti-trafficking measures. Vulnerabilities discussed in this paper were extracted from the available literature on trafficking involving Pacific Island nations. The paper also uses information from unique Pacific Island stakeholder forums and consultations conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) with regional partners in 2008 and 2009. Table, case studies, and references